When routing electrical power to a series of electrical devices such as street lights, the power conductor is brought into the base of the unit, electrically interconnected to a tap wire that is routed to the lamp itself, and another power conductor that is routed to the next street light. The electrical interconnection can be made with wire nuts if the combination of wire sizes is not too large, or, more typically, it can be made with either a terminal block or a split bolt splice. The terminal block is a metal block having holes formed therein for receiving the individual conductors to be interconnected. Each hole has a set screw that intersects the hole at a right angle for tightening against the conductor and holding it in the terminal block. The set screw, however, tends to damage the surface of the conductor, and the length of the area of contact between the conductor and the inside surface of the hole is relatively small. When the conductor is inserted into the hole and the set screw tightened, any oxide layer present on the surfaces of the conductor and the hole will remain tending to provide a higher resistance path than would otherwise be the case if the oxide layers were not there. The point of contact between the set screw and the conductor is the only low resistance contact. The split bolt device, on the other hand, utilizes a nut and bolt arrangement where the bolt is split for receiving the conductors to be spliced. The conductors are inserted into the opening in the split bolt and the nut tightened to force the conductors against the head of the bolt. As with the terminal block, any oxide layers present will be trapped within the connection resulting in a high resistance contact, and the nut tends to damage the conductor's surface. This structure requires that the conductors be clamped against each other so that if they are of dissimilar material, galvanic corrosion problems may occur. Additionally, the surface area of electrical contact is relatively small.
What is needed is a wire connector that separately clamps each conductor, provides a wiping action as the conductors are being interconnected to remove any oxide that may be present without damage to the conductors, and that provides a relatively large area for electrical contact to assure proper current flow through the connector.